1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bedside wellness system which can provide a rehabilitation physical exercise, intended for, for example, a patient who stays in a medical institution and lies in bed, and a patient or a person of advanced age who stays at a health care institution for the aged or at home and lies in bed. More particularly, the present invention relates to a bedside wellness system which can provide a virtual reality environment which can add a sense of sophisticated realism so as to cause such a patient to motivate himself or herself for rehabilitation, which usually bores the patient, so that the bedside wellness system can encourage a patient who stays in hospital to do early rising after an operation, and prevent a patient who has been receiving medical treatment for a long time from atrophying with disuse.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has not existed a bedside wellness system intended for patients, which enables a patient who has no alternative but to be confined to bed to do an early rehabilitation exercise in the presence of a doctor, or according to instructions of a doctor, so as to prompt early rising and prevent the patient from atrophying with disuse. Some conventional training machines intended for the improvement of a person's health and physical strength have been used as a wellness system. An artificial-experience giving device equipped with a display, for providing a user with artificial experience in doing a target physical training exercise while seeing an image displayed on the screen of the display is one of such training machines. Referring now to FIG. 8, there is illustrated a schematic view of such a prior art artificial-experience giving device equipped with a display as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying Open (KOKAI) No. 7-80096. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a bicycle training machine, 2 denotes a pedal of the machine, 3 denotes a saddle of the machine, 4 denotes a projector which projects an image of an artificial scene, 5 denotes a screen shaped like a half-spherical dome, on which an image from the projector 4 is displayed, 6 denotes a blowing outlet out of which an artificial wind is blowing, 7 denotes a blowing box which produces the artificial wind, and 8 denotes a fragrant substance adding unit for adding a fragrant substance to the artificial wind.
When a user sits on the saddle 3 of the bicycle training machine 1 and then starts to pedal the bicycle training machine, the projector 4 projects an image on the screen 5 shaped like a half-spherical dome and located at the front of the bicycle training machine 1. In general, the image displayed on the screen is concerned with an artificial scene in the vicinity of an artificial road on which the bicycle is moving, and the image is controlled so that the artificial scene is varied according to the speed at which the user pushes the pedals 2 around, that is, the scene moves at a high speed when the user pedals fast and the scene moves at a low speed when the user pedals slowly. In addition, a wind from the blowing outlet 6 located at the front of the user is blowing toward the user. The velocity of the wind is controlled according to the speed at which the user pushes the pedals around, similarly to the speed of a variation in the image projected on the screen. Furthermore, the prior art artificial-experience giving device equipped with a display is adapted to control the load of a physical exercise imposed on the user and select a fragrant substance to be added to the artificial wind according to the contents of the image displayed on the screen so as to provide the user with a sense of realism, for example, increase the load of the bicycle training when an image of an upward slope is displayed on the screen, decrease the load of the bicycle training when an image of an downward slope is displayed on the screen, or add a fragrant substance including phytoncide as a major constituent to the artificial wind blowing out of the blowing outlet 6 by means of the fragrant substance adding unit 8 in a situation wherein the user is going on a bicycle trip in a wood.
While the prior art wellness system, which is implemented via such the conventional artificial-experience giving device equipped with a display and which is so constructed as mentioned above, is effective in improving the health and physical strength of a person of health, and recovering the physical strength of a patient who is almost restored in health, the prior art wellness system is not effective in providing early rehabilitation for a patient who has no alternative but to be confined to bed, in the presence of a doctor, or according to instructions of a doctor, so as to prompt early rising and prevent the user from atrophying with disuse. While the prior art wellness system has a measure to display an image in order to cause the user to motivate himself or herself to do a rehabilitation exercise, it cannot add a sense of realism to a sufficient degree. For example, the prior art wellness system cannot provide a vibration which varies according to the condition of a road surface on which a user walks in a virtual reality environment so as to cause the user to have a feeling of stepping on something. When the prior art wellness system shows an image of trees nodding in a wind or leaves being swayed by the wind, the velocity of the wind blowing out of the blowing outlet 6 cannot reflect that of the wind blowing in the image, which can be expected from the scene of the image, and therefore the load of the physical exercise that the user is doing cannot reflect the resistance of the wind which can be estimated from the image. Furthermore, since the prior art wellness system does not have a function of forcefully helping a patient who cannot do a physical exercise at the patient's will to do that, it has no effect on bedridden patients. In addition, another problem with the prior art wellness system is that a measure is not taken to stop the wellness system when a patient who is using the prior art wellness system gets himself or herself absorbed in an artificial environment created by the wellness system to excess and does a physical exercise to excess.